19: 1970s Malaise

the 1970s help us understand the transformation from “the American century” of the postwar years to the new era of globalization that we still live in today. Be it the transition from a unionized industrial heartland to a globalizing service and information economy; the switch from civil rights debates to campaigns for law and order, the decline of federal dominion and the rise of the tax revolt, or the birth of the Culture War – the 1970s hold the key for understanding the second half of the twentieth century.

Moreover, across 25 years, I almost never met a student athlete who could tell me how 20th-century sex discrimination had affected their own sport. None knew the basic prongs of Title IX that covered their own educational rights. Yet in the absence of a ratified Equal Rights Amendment, Title IX remains the closest legal guarantee of sex equity in American education.

I think under these circumstances we are doing everything we can to take this incident and to investigate it and not to cover it up. What really hurts in matters of this sort is not the fact that they occur, because overzealous people in campaigns do things that are wrong. What really hurts is if you try to cover it up.

I must say to you that the state of the Union is not good: Millions of Americans are out of work. Recession and inflation are eroding the money of millions more. Prices are too high, and sales are too slow. This year's Federal deficit will be about $30 billion; next year's probably $45 billion.

Now, I want to speak very bluntly. I've got bad news, and I don't expect much, if any, applause